Soviet GULAG Larger and More Deadly During and After World War II than in 1937

Paul Goble

            Staunton, May 15 – Nikita Khrushchev, many in the West in the past, and many in Russia today narrow the scope of the GULAG to 1937, the year of “the great terror” that swept into its maw numerous party and Soviet officials, thus distracting attention from how many more ordinary Russians were incarcerated and died in the camps in World War II and thereafter.

            That has the effect of minimizing in the minds of those who accept that version of events the nature and extent of the crimes of the Soviet system and making it easier for current autocrats like Vladimir Putin to portray that system in a positive light and to describe Stalin as “an effective manager.

            Fortunately, there are Russians who are fighting back, trying to produce a more honest picture of the past. Among them are the activists behind the Moscow Museum of the History of the GULAG which has now produced an interactive map of 555 GULAG camps of various kinds and dates and an annual accounting of inmates and deaths.

            The product of three years of work, the map and the numbers are admittedly incomplete; but they provide an important corrective to those who seek to present the camps as a Stalinist aberration rather than an integral part of the Soviet system. For the map itself, see gulagmap.ru/; for a discussion of it, rusk.ru/newsdata.php?idar=80771.

            Below are the figures by year of the number of GULAG inmates and the number of deaths for the period 1930 through 1956:

Year/Inmates/Inmate Deaths

1930 - 230,440 – 7980

1931 – 276,440 – 7283

1932 – 288,180 – 13,267

1933 – 553,765 – 67,297

1934 – 344,331 – 26,295

1935 – 542,571 – 32,659

1936 – 523,746 – 26,479

1937 -  828,570 – 33,499

1938 – 537,523 – 126,585

1939 – 405,221 – 65,301

1940 – 1.050,178 – 56,703

1941 – 1,198,139 - 120,864

1942 – 1,566,479 - 382,348

1943 – 1,344,507 – 288,399

1944 -  1,186,297 – 124,725

1945 – 941,654 – 87,903

1946 – 1,109,799 –33,066

1947 – 1,519,494 – 62,007

1948 – 1,161,233 – 30,688

1949 – 1,086,000 – 30, 688

1950 – 858,477 – 24,354

1951 – 699, 132 – 24,090

1952 – 675,100 – 21, 221

1953 – 533,270 – 10,369

1954 – 443,554 -- no data

1955 – 432,673 – no data

1956 – 506,599 – no data